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Disaster management: A study on knowledge, attitude and practice of

emergency nurse and community health nurse

Article  in  BMC Public Health · November 2012

DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-S2-A3

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Nurul'Ain Ahayalimudin Aniza Ismail

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 Ahayalimudin et al. BMC Public Health 2012, 12(Suppl 2):A3
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/S2/A3
MEETING ABSTRACT
Disaster management: a study on knowledge,
attitude and practice of emergency nurse and
community health nurse
Nurul’Ain Ahayalimudin1*, Aniza Ismail2, Ismail Mohd Saiboon3
From 6th Postgraduate Forum on Health Systems and Policies
Melaka, Malaysia. 21-22 May 2012
Background
Disasters are unpredictable events that kill and affect
people, demolish properties and disrupt environment.
During such events, nurses play a vital role in dealing
with the victims. It is therefore crucial for nurses to be
prepared in facing the aftermath of disasters. The aim of
this study was to determine knowledge, attitude and
practice of emergency nurse and community health
nurse towards disaster management.
Materials and methods
This was a cross-sectional study conducted in emergency
departments and health clinics in Selangor, one of the
states in Malaysia. Questionnaire forms eliciting informa-
tion about knowledge, attitude and practice towards disas-
ter management were randomly distributed to 468 nurses
working at the aforementioned clinics. This survey was
conducted from October to November 2011 and yielded a
response rate of 84.6 per cent.
Results
Both groups of nurses had similar inadequate knowledge
but portrayed positive attitude towards disaster manage-
ment. They differ in terms of practice whereby 56.1% of
emergency nurses reported having had adequate practice
compared to 30.7% of the community health nurses (chi-
squared test, P<0.001). Emergency nurses who have been
involved in disaster response are more likely to report
adequate practice (P<0.01, AOR=4.008, 95% CI=1.691-
9.504) while those who attended disaster-related educa-
tion/training are more likely to have adequate knowledge
(P<0.05, AOR=3.807, 95% CI=1.584-9.153) and practice
1
Kulliyyah of Nursing, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Hospital
Campus, 25100 Kuantan, Malaysia
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
© 2012 Ahayalimudin et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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(P=0.001, AOR=4.145, 95% CI=1.804- 9.525). Attending
disaster-related education/training is seen to be a predic-
tor to adequate knowledge (P<0.001, AOR=3.511, 95%
CI=2.097-5.881) and practice (P<0.001, AOR=4.080, 95%
CI=2.326-7.156), and portraying positive attitude (p<0.05,
AOR=2.042, 95% CI=1.025-4.069) among community
health nurse. Nurses’ workplace (represent type of nurse)
is identified as a predictor for the adequacy of practice
(P<0.001, AOR=2.345, 95% CI=1.474-3.730).
Conclusions
Adequacy of knowledge and practice, and portraying
positive attitude is driven by being involved in disaster
response and attending disaster-related education. It is
therefore paramount for health administrators to con-
duct disaster-related education/training for front-liners
such as emergency and community health nurses to
improve their knowledge and practice towards disaster
management.
Author details
1
Kulliyyah of Nursing, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Hospital
Campus, 25100 Kuantan, Malaysia. 2Department of Community Health,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Jalan Yaacob Latif, Bandar
Tun Razak, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 3Department of Emergency
Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Jalan Yaacob Latif,
Bandar Tun Razak, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Published: 27 November 2012
doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-S2-A3
Cite this article as: Ahayalimudin et al.: Disaster management: a study
on knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency nurse and
community health nurse. BMC Public Health 2012 12(Suppl 2):A3.